Botanical Characters
Work in progress
I was inspired to recreate letters with actual plants after seeing midcentury initial letters embellished with floral graphics. This process driven work starts with finding a plant that inspires me to build a letter of the alphabet. A stem that bends easily can inspire a curved letter or a leaf’s shape can suggest a certain typeface. Once I arrange the plant into a letter, I photograph it then set it on light sensitive paper to make a cyanotype. The plant casts a shadow on the paper leaving an impression of the letter form, photographing it again. Lastly I reference both the photograph of the letter structure and the photograph of the letter form to copy as a hand rendered watercolor letter.
